The Randomness that is a German summer

A few of the ridiculous things you see during a German summer...

What she used to have or what she wants?

Ted and Ollie Harris.  Summer haircuts.

 How did this guy get onto the 5th floor window?  My view one day at work.

 Johan was very proud of the birthday gifts Susie and I found for him in Inverness, Scotland.

TROUBLE.

Dear Bar Nurnberg, why do you have a Cucumber jar on your bar?  I do however like drinking out of tin cups.

Two new Italian cities: Milan & Vicenza

After visiting Ferrari and Ducati, we drove up to Milan for store checking and inspiration.  It was my first time to the fashion capital.  We arrived at night and went out for team dinner and some drinks on the sidewalk enjoying the summer weather with the locals. 

Next day, an early start of wandering the streets and retailers for inspiration take-aways.

Some cool jewelery from the fashion staple retailer Corso Como.

 

Being in northern Italy, I of course had to visit Bobo!  He works out of his company, Moss Group's, Vicenza location.  That being Andrea's home town, we took the train from Milan to Vicenza together where Bobo picked us up.
Andrea had been bragging about Vicenza since I met him and he was always telling the truth.  The city is beautiful, charming, and is now tied for favorite Italian city with Verona.  It's the city of Palladio, the great architecture master who inspired Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren as well the planners of America as seen in Washington DC.  Every building here is lovely..  It being another warm, romantical summer night in Italy, there was a live outdoor orchestra concert in the main piazza. Yes, I could totally live here.

See the Venetian branding of the winged lion. 

Bobo, Andrea and I.  Always up to mischief.

The tradition in Vicenza is that when you graduate high school your friends make these large posters with songs and poems and quotes basically throwing you under the bus.  I guess once you graduate high school here, your parents give you a free pass for your past crimes.  Poor Giulia Raffaello. ;)

Bobo, myself, Andrea's best friend from childhood, and Andrea.  Bravo!  Andrea - thanks for showing me around your hometown and Bobo, thanks for being a great host.  See you soon, Vicenza.

I arrived back in Nurnberg with the ideal luggage cart waiting for me.  Official days on the road: 23

All in a days work - visiting Ferrari & Ducati

Directly from London and the epic roadtrip, I flew to Bologna, Italy for a Motorsports team inspiration trip to visit our partners Ferrari and Ducati.
First stop, Ducati where we met w/ the head of their design program, toured the factory, and then the museum.  Since I've already blogged about the Ducati museum and no pictures were allowed anywhere else, this is all you get this trip ;)

The champion racing bikes in orange so they appear Ducati red on HD TV.

Fabien's dream.

The Puma and Ducati teams.

The next day was our meeting with the creative teams at Ferrari, a tour of the factory, and then also the museum.  While having grown up with my dad a motorsports enthusiast, I never understood the power and attraction of Ferrari until this day.  The factory is at standards unknown -natural light everywhere, museum piece cars in each building to remind the workers for whom and why they work to perfection, fully automated systems and robots whizzing by.  These cars a beautiful and worth every penny. 
Again no pictures in the HQ or in the factories.  And definitely no pictures at the super cool "storage garage" where the lucky winners of retired F1 cars after auction can keep their Ferraris stored between the elite races they all participate in.  The engines are downgraded and a few changes are made, but ultimately it's a small elite group who get to play race car driver in the real thing racing against each other.

Here are some snap shots from the museum for your car porn pleasures. 

This is the Ferrari I want.  A blue Dino ;)

 

The Puma and Ferrari team.

After the meeting we drove up to Milan for store checking and inspiration.